The Raven Ring

by Patricia C. Wrede

  SIXTEEN

  DANER’S SUMMARY OF THE card-charting and the spell gone wrong was brief and accurate. Baroja and Lord tir Vallaniri listened in silence until he finished, and the questions they asked afterward were clear and pointed. To Eleret’s relief, Daner did not go into the possible reasons behind Jonystra’s actions, nor did he mention the raven ring.

  “I’ll arrange to have the woman questioned when the healer is done with her,” Lord tir Vallaniri said at last. “My apologies, Freelady Salven; this should not have happened in my house.”

  “I am the one who should apologize, for bringing this trouble on you,” Eleret replied, but she was warmed by his evident sincerity.

  “I suppose it was you she was interested in, Freelady?” Baroja studied his left sleeve as he spoke.

  Daner frowned. “It certainly looked like it to me. What are you getting at, Baroja?”

  “Only that it seems a little odd for someone to get inside a noble household, associate however briefly with the family, and then attack a relatively unimportant visitor.”

  “Jonystra followed us from Eleret’s lodgings.”

  “Nonsense.” Baroja waved a hand in careless dismissal. “I found her myself, down in the Orphan’s Market.”

  “Did you? Or was she the one who found you? Just how did you get hold of her so conveniently, anyway?”

  Lord tir Vallaniri stepped forward, and was instantly the focus of attention. “A telling question, Daner, but one that will have to wait. I am more concerned about your sisters. This woman charted cards for all three of them, as I understand it. Are you magician enough to tell whether she cast any spells on them, or should I send for a wizard?”

  Baroja’s eyes widened and his jaw went slack with surprise, as if he had not thought out all the possibilities before he had made his remark and was now almost regretting having spoken. Eleret wondered what he had been trying to do and why, and whether she would ever understand the way these incomprehensible people behaved.

  Daner pursed his lips, then nodded at his father. “I think I can spot anything major, but if you’re worried about subtle effects, you’d better send for Fenutiol. It would be easier if I knew what she was trying to do with Eleret, but—” He shrugged.

  “Can’t you tell from the chart?” Baroja asked. “That is the whole reason for fussing with these cards, after all.”

  “She didn’t finish Eleret’s chart,” Daner said. “We’ve got what we think are the last eleven cards, but you can’t tell much from them without knowing in what order they’d have fallen.”

  “I can’t,” Baroja said. “But I know who can. Mother. She’s been to so many card-charters that she knows the cards as well as they do, and she’s always reinterpreting other people’s charts out of order.”

  Remembering the conversations in the main hall, Eleret almost smiled. Baroja’s description fit Lady Kistran like a made-to-measure breastplate.

  Daner blinked. “I suppose it’s worth a try. Eleret—”

  “Not tonight,” Lord tir Vallaniri said. “Speak with your aunt in the morning, Daner; I can’t spare that much of your time tonight. Do what you can to check on your sisters, and I’ll arrange for a more thorough inspection tomorrow. Freelady Salven, again, my deepest apologies for this incident, and forgive me, too, for keeping you standing here. After all you’ve been through, you must be very tired. Bresc! Escort Freelady Salven to her room, and see that she has everything she needs.”

  “Thank you, but I’d rather stay,” Eleret said. She wouldn’t learn anything stuck in her room, and she had a feeling she was going to need every shred of information she could scrape together in order to make sense out of the day’s events.

  “You needn’t prove yourself to me, Freelady,” Lord tir Vallaniri said. “Go on and rest. I’ll send Daner up later to let you know if we’ve found anything.” His tone was kind, but his attention had already shifted to Daner and Baroja.

  Eleret hesitated. She did not want to offend Lord tir Vallaniri, but neither did she want to depend on his goodwill for the information she needed. From the look of him, he was likely to forget her existence the moment she was out of his sight.

  “And I’ll let you know right away if there’s anything urgent,” Daner said.

  “Very well. Fortune favor you, my lords.” Eleret bowed, smiled at Baroja’s startled expression (though she did not understand it), and followed the stony-faced guardsman out the door.

  Bresc took a different route from the one Laurinel had used, and Eleret kept a closer eye than usual on the twists and turns of the hallways. As far as she knew, Mobrellan was still loose somewhere in the house, and that was cause enough to keep a hand near her knife. He might be the innocent servant Baroja and Daner seemed to think him, but until she had good reason to believe differently, she would assume that he was waist-deep in Jonystra’s plots. Better to be prepared for the rock that doesn’t fall…

  Finally, Bresc paused. “Your room, my lady.”

  “Thank you,” Eleret said. Keeping as far back as she could, she set a hand to the door and shoved it open.

  Candlelight spilled into the hall. Eleret stepped sideways into the shelter of the wall and reached for her knife.

  “Lorig has prepared your chamber for you, my lady.” Bresc’s voice was even more expressionless than usual, but there was a gleam of approval in his eyes.

  “Oh.” Eleret straightened. She should have guessed; an intruder would hardly advertise his presence by lighting candles.

  “Will there be anything else, my lady?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Bresc bowed and left. Still feeling edgy and vaguely disquieted, Eleret walked through the open door. Her kit bags had been moved to the foot of the bed; a candle burned on the table, the embers of a fire glowed on the hearth, and the room was uncomfortably warm and stuffy. Eleret sighed and crossed to the window. If she was going to get any sleep tonight, she’d have to air the room.

  “Ahem.”

  Eleret spun, dropping into a crouch and reaching for her weapons as a man stepped slowly out of the deep shadow between the wardrobe and the far wall. His size and stance were faintly familiar, and he held his hands out to either side, fingers spread to emphasize the fact that they were empty. Even before he spoke, she suspected who he was, and his voice confirmed it.

  “I come unarmed, and mean no ill to you or yours,” Karvonen said in careful, barely accented Cilhar. “Quite the contrary, in fact, though I expect you’ll take some convincing of that.”

  Eleret blinked in surprise. So the thief speaks Cilhar and knows the conventions for safe approach. She relaxed a little more; anyone so knowledgeable deserved to be treated accordingly, at least until she knew what he wanted and how he had gotten there.

  “Come out where I can see you,” Eleret said in Ciaronese.

  “Will this do?” He stepped forward half a pace and leaned into the candlelight. Fox-colored hair gleamed briefly; then he pulled back into the shadows. “I’m not anxious to be noticed by anyone else, you see. Quite apart from the damage it would do to your reputation, think of what it would do to mine.”

  “Karvonen Aurelico.” Eleret shook her head in wonder. “What are you doing here? How did you pick this room? And how did you get in?”

  “I was waiting for you,” Karvonen said promptly. “As for getting in—I’m a thief, remember?”

  “You make it difficult to forget,” Eleret said. “Be a little more specific.”

  “Why don’t you close the door first? It’s a long tale, and I’d hate for us to be interrupted in the middle. You might never hear the end of the story.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t want that to happen.” Keeping one hand on her knife and both eyes on Karvonen, Eleret edged toward the door and nudged it shut with her foot. “Now, try again. Why are you here?”

  “I’m trying to retrieve my mistake this afternoon.” Karvonen sighed and folded his arms across his chest. “Having scruples is such a nuisance. You would
n’t believe the trouble I get into because of them.”

  “You’re right,” Eleret said. “I wouldn’t. For the third time, what is it you want? Or do I have to use the same method as I did this afternoon to get a reasonable answer? As I remember, you were much more talkative then.” She slid two inches of her knife out of the sheath, turning slightly so that the candlelight glinted on the exposed blade.

  “No, no,” Karvonen said. “There’s no need for that sort of thing, really. I just don’t know where to start.”

  “You can start by coming out where I can see you clearly, now that no one can look through the door and ruin your reputation,” Eleret said. Karvonen’s expression might not give away much, but she wanted to be able to watch it anyway, just in case.

  “That’s easy enough.” Karvonen slid out of the shadows and sat down on the edge of the bed. Leaning back, he said, “Will this suit you? It will take me a moment to get into position, if I want to try something; that should give you plenty of warning. Now, where were we?”

  Eleret looked at him with the most skeptical expression she could muster and slid another inch of knife blade free. “Try the beginning.”

  “The beginning,” Karvonen said, and shook his head sadly. “Right to the beginning, with no lead-in, no setting the atmosphere, no background, no buildup of suspense. When am I going to meet a Cilhar who understands small talk? It begins with the twist.”

  “The what?”

  “The twist. Snagging your boyfriend’s bucket this afternoon.”

  “Stealing his purse, you mean.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Eleret gave Karvonen the look she usually reserved for her sister Nilly when Nilly brought home yet another orphaned fox cub or injured squirrel.

  Karvonen sighed again. “Not one for colorful language, either, I see. Very well. In plain words: I thought something was odd about the job from the beginning, but I didn’t worry about it until I found out you were Cilhar. When the Syaski showed up—”

  “How do you know they were Syaski?”

  “Their boots and their belts,” the thief said without hesitation. “Syaski like wooden-soled boots with heels, and lace them up along the outside of their legs, and there’s a fashion in Syaskor right now for braided leather sword-belts. Your average Syask in Ciaron will change the rest of his clothes to suit local styles, but he won’t walk around in soft leather shoes and he’ll keep his familiar, properly adjusted sword-belt unless someone cuts it off him.” Karvonen gave Eleret a sidelong look. “The same way a Cilhar will find some way of carrying half an armory’s worth of weapons no matter what she wears.”

  “Go on.” Eleret kept her tone carefully neutral, but she pushed her knife back into its sheath. As long as Karvonen cooperated, she was willing to give him a little maneuvering room. A very little; she kept her hand near the hilt.

  Karvonen made a show of politely ignoring the gesture, and continued. “When the Syaski showed up, I knew something was stranger than a Kith Alunel envoy without something to argue about.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not incompetent. You think I just decide whose tail to twist on the spur of the moment? I heard about you and your boyfriend—”

  “Lord Daner isn’t my boyfriend,” Eleret said, annoyed. She’d let it go by once, but after two mentions, she had to correct him. Karvonen would drive her crazy if he kept referring to Daner that way.

  “Huh.” Karvonen pursed his lips skeptically. “I’ll bet it’s not because he didn’t try.”

  “You’d lose.”

  “Then Daner’s an idiot,” Karvonen said with feeling.

  “Let’s get back to your long tale. You heard about Lord Daner and me—”

  “—from a local acquaintance who lets me know now and then when he runs across a good thing. He said there were lots of rumors about you but no solid information, which usually means big money is involved. Being fond of money, I thought I’d just appropriate a little of it before some amateur loused up the whole thing.”

  In spite of herself, Eleret’s lips curled in disgust. Karvonen spread his hands, a picture of apology. “It is my profession.”

  “Well, don’t ever practice it near me again.”

  “I wouldn’t have practiced it near you once, if I’d known you were Cilhar. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. None of the gossips know you’re Cilhar, but those Syaski knew.”

  “So who do you think set them on us?”

  “Brains as well as skill and beauty. Daner is an idiot.”

  “Leave Daner out of this,” Eleret said. “Who was it?”

  “A fellow by the name of Gorchastrin, Grand Master—”

  “—of the Order of Tsantilar in Rathane.” Eleret was surprised, but she was also relieved. At least she didn’t have yet another unknown enemy lurking somewhere in Ciaron. “The Grand Master and I have met.”

  “No you haven’t,” Karvonen said smugly.

  By an effort of will, Eleret kept her expression from changing. She wasn’t going to give the little thief the satisfaction of showing surprise. “Explain.”

  Karvonen gave her an exasperated look. “You’re no fun at all, do you know that? Anyone else, even a Cilhar, would have at least said something about not believing me. But you—”

  “I have a lot on my mind.” The success of her strategy pleased her, but she couldn’t show that, either. “About Gorchastrin?”

  “Oh, very well. Grand Master Gorchastrin of the Order of Tsantilar in Rathane died mysteriously some time ago. Possibly murdered, though no one seems quite sure. Sometimes it’s hard to tell with wizards.”

  “But you’re sure he’s dead?”

  “Absolutely. No mistakes, no substitutions, no secret revivals. He’s dead, all right. And it gets better. The night before he died, Gorchastrin told his fellow Grand Masters that he had just made a discovery that would put the Order of Tsantilar at the top of the extremely messy heap of wizard’s guilds in Rathane. How much do you know about Rathani politics?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “Then there’s no point in confusing you with an explanation. Unless you want to spend the next three or four hours untangling the snakes’ nest of factions they’ve accumulated over the years. I love Rathane,” he added in a happy tone. “If you pick the right person and the right place, you can steal his purse, his sword, and the cloak off his back and stroll off admiring the scenery, because the locals will take two days to decide who’s responsible for catching you.”

  “How long ago did this happen? The business with Gorchastrin, I mean.”

  “Two months ago, give or take a day.”

  “Two months ago?” Eleret frowned. Her mother had still been alive then. “Where was he killed?”

  “In his bedchamber in Rathane. And you really should say ‘died,’ I did tell you I wasn’t sure he was murdered.”

  Eleret shrugged. So long as Tamm Salven hadn’t been involved in the fellow’s death, Karvonen’s hairsplitting wasn’t important. “If Gorchastrin’s dead, who tried to persuade the City Guard to arrest me this morning?”

  “How should I know?”

  “You seem to know an awful lot of other things.”

  “There is that.” Karvonen looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Put it down to an inexplicable gap in my otherwise vast fund of knowledge.”

  “Karvonen…”

  “I’m serious. Well, almost. When I found out that a dead Rathani mage was wandering around in Ciaron, I asked a couple of people who should have known who he was, really. Nobody did. Inexplicable.”

  Eleret snorted. “How do you know all the rest of these things?”

  For the first time, Karvonen looked uncomfortable. “Family connections. I’m afraid I can’t say more than that.”

  “Very well.” Eleret forced her frustration down. After all, family matters were for family. She was surprised that a thief appreciated that; then she remembered that Charis had said the Aurelicos held to some
honor code of their own. Evidently, the City Guardswoman had been right. The thought made Eleret feel friendlier toward Karvonen.

  Karvonen looked surprised, then grinned. “For the first time all day, I’m glad you’re a Cilhar, Freelady. Most Ciaronese wouldn’t let go of it that easily.”

  “Then they have odd ideas about proprieties.”

  “Not odd, just different. If I said I was connected with the Imperial palace, a Ciaronese would nod and say no more. You don’t ask awkward questions about one of the Emperor’s spies.”

  “No one would believe you were one of the Emperor’s spies.”

  “But if they did, they’d stop asking questions.” Karvonen rubbed his nose, looking thoughtful. “And you’d be surprised at the tales people will swallow, if you put them right.”

  “Maybe.” Eleret frowned. Karvonen had not acted as if he knew any of this earlier, so he must have gone out looking for it after their encounter that afternoon. Why? And why was he telling it to an almost-stranger? To her surprise, Eleret found that she wanted to believe him, but she had to consider the possibility that it was some sort of trap. She sighed. “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Would you believe me if I said I was smitten by your beauty and couldn’t think of any other way to see you again?”

  “No.”

  Karvonen sighed again. “I didn’t think so. Well, if you must know, it’s because you caught me snagging your boyfr—Lord Daner’s bucket this afternoon.”

  “So?”

  “So if I don’t do something to make up for it, I’m in big trouble. This is all I could think of.”

  “If you came to make up for picking Daner’s pocket, what are you doing in my chamber?”

  “Because he’s just a wizard. You’re Cilhar.”

  Eleret shook her head. “That doesn’t explain anything.”

  With an air of resignation, Karvonen said, “Family policy. You don’t mess with wizards, and you really don’t fool with Cilhar. The difference is, not messing with wizards is just a good idea. Basic good sense for anybody, but especially for a thief. Fooling with Cilhar…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head.